Posts Tagged ‘Vitalistic’

The brain is sexy! Let me put this another way – Talk about the brain and how to make it work better, and people sit up and listen.

Let me illustrate this with three examples: I contribute health related articles to a number of online magazines and forums, and I have to tell you that it is hard work finding topics and content that pulls readers. You probably already know this as a Chiropractor – especially if you have run regular “spinal health” workshops, covered your coffee table in health brochures (which gather dust), or grappled with how to get people to line up at your booth at a health expo or shopping centre? On one site that I contribute to my articles usually get just over 100 hits with about ten comments. This disappoints me as I believe the message I share is applicable to everyone searching the net – and when you can log onto YouTube and see some chick in knickers getting millions of hits. But to put this in context, most of the other contributors receive 60-80 hits to their offerings. Recently however I ran a piece on “how do you keep your brain healthy?” I posted this a few weeks ago now and it is still running with over 1,000 hits and 50 comments.

I regularly send in article submissions and short health tips to the local media, with the all too common cold shoulder response – “we had too many other news pieces to run this week”, “we didn’t think this would appeal to our readership”, “if you’d like to run a half page ad I’m sure we could get that article included”. Recently I promoted a “healthy brain workshop”, and received a number of “bites” and coverage from the local media with much larger than normal attendances to my workshops.

In May I was privileged to be invited to train a group of Chiropractors in Johannesburg in Torque Release Technique. The organiser had struck up a conversation with a PhD Psychologist who specialises in Brain EEG mapping, and when he had suggested to her that he believed that a chiropractic adjustment changed brain function, she had politely snubbed him based on her scientific experience. When he asked me what to do I suggested that he invite her to our program and ask if she would be wiling to do pre and post exams on the Chiropractors that were adjusted at the end of a long day of training. She happily accepted the challenge. We only had time to do a limited (“statistically insignificant”) number of trials, and afterward when we asked her what she had observed she commented that each participant had experienced a “shift” in their brain function. Most of us being EEG novices we pressed her further to explain this – apparently it usually takes approximately 6 months of neurobiofeedback to achieve this phenomenon – not bad response to the carefully selected delivery of 1-3 primary subluxation adjustments? Her response was to demand that I adjust her before she left – I think her scientific opinion had been shifted.

Some research supports this observation that chiropractic adjustments change brain function (1-3): Hang on a minute – don’t skim over that statement – CHIROPRACTIC ADJUSTMENTS CHANGE BRAIN FUNCTION. Do you own that statement yourself? Do you comprehend the implications to the community IF that statement is correct and consistent?

Let me propose two shifts that may need to occur in our profession for this secret to get out to where it needs to be heard:

1) Our comprehension of the spine as being ligaments, muscle, discs, joints and biomechanics; needs to mature to neurones, neuropeptides, tensegrity, brain holography and quantum physics.

2) Our model of analysis, adjustment and communication needs to shift from a bone/back focus to a nerve/brain focus.

Are you ready to make this shift yourself? Torque Release Technique training provides you with comprehensive training in the Art, Science and Philosophy of adjusting from a more neurological, quantum physics and vitalistic model.

There are SO many chiropractic programs and techniques available to Chiropractors nowadays – Alphabet Soup you might say. For this reason it is imperative that each DC choose programs which are going to give them real value for their money. Nobody wants to attend a program which gives them one take-home strategy which they will use on one patient a week; or worse still leave the class and never implement a single aspect of the training. Below is my list of reasons to attend Torque Release Technique based on feedback from previous graduates of what changes the most in a DC’s life after attending a TRT program…

1)Better results with the majority of your patients – so many programs tell you that they are going to help you get better results with those “problem patients”. Isn’t it perplexing how we forget about the 80% that are getting good results and focus our minds on that 10% that isn’t responding: And we’ll spend big dollars attending a program that will help us get better results with the people who provide us with a small proportion of our income!! What if you could attend a program that will convert your good results to great results – imagine what will happen when 80% of your practice is getting better results?

2)Absolute certainty that you are adjusting the subluxation which most needs to be adjusted, at that moment in time, with the correct vectors and contacts – by contrast most other systems give you a list of possible subluxations, and then you either adjust all of them or make some subjective decision as to which ones you will adjust on that visit – and then there’s a bunch of systems that place no value or priority on what needs to be adjusted (if it pops then it must have needed it) – near enough is not good enough.

3)Increased retention – Because most other systems are linear and mechanistic they don’t adapt to the change that is happening: They see patient plateau at some point in the care program – plateau is the biggest enemy of retention – TRT is non-linear and vitalistic – in other words; the adjustments adapt and evolve as the patient’s nervous system goes through plastic changes – this means that patients keep getting significant changes after each adjustment – and excited patients stay and they refer.

4)Very quick analysis system that helps to cut down the number of adjustments needed each visit while still giving the best results – It IS possible to give someone a high quality adjustment in less than 2 minutes.

5)Less physical strain on the DC’s body – many DCs are paying a personal price physically and mentally due to how hard they are working to give their patients great adjustments – TRT is very easy physically and very orderly mentally – you get to the end of the day with energy still left over for your family and interests.

6) Every DC who has ever implemented TRT to some degree has increased their practice volume, while often reducing their working hours – TRT is very helpful for DCs wanting to practice high volume.

7) It is the first analysis and adjustment system to be totally neurologically based: The indicators we use are neurological indicators, the analysis system we utilise is neurological, and the Integrator adjustment is a neurological intervention.

It is the only system that breaks Chiropractic out of a mechanistic model: Most systems talk about the nervous system in terms of the outcomes, but then regress into biomechanical speak, assessment and intervention – “I’m a wellness Chiropractor and I straighten spines” – NOT! – a straight spine does not guarantee wellness – only improved neurological function guarantees wellness.

9) It is the only system that offers a completely vitalistic application of our vitalistic philosophy – totally congruent with the 33 principles and yet current with quantum science: Mechanism is not a subset of vitalism; it is a subset of reductionism. Vitalism requires a respect for the life, spirit, energy and intelligence of human existence – does your “treatment” release human potential, or does it impose your belief of what angle a cervical curve should be?

10) Increased understanding of the emotional component of subluxation – how emotions contributes to subluxation – how subluxation impacts on the emotional component of the nervous system – and most DCs see bigger changes in patients emotional states when they use TRT.

11) Totally congruent with WELLNESS practice – many DCs say they are wellness DCs, but basically have a practice full of people who come for regular check-ups – a wellness practice can only be measured by improved state of wellbeing in the clients, not by how often someone gets adjusted – TRT DCs find that their practice members go through major shifts in their state of wellbeing.

12) The level of satisfaction with the Integrator is much higher than with most other instruments – most DCs use their instrument as an alternative to manual adjusting – when all else fails or when they feel it is not safe to adjust manually. The opposite happens when DCs use Integrators – they are usually shocked to find that they actually get better changes and feel their adjustments “hold” better when using an Integrator. And those recurring subluxations that used to be back again every visit suddenly seem to clear and no longer recur.

13) They discover a massive demographic of new patients who would never see a “bone cruncher” but love the low-force approach – Like it or not – the manual adjustment has been the vehicle with which most DCs have produced great health changes in their customers. But at the same time the manual adjustment suffers from a very poor public relations history: From comedy shows, to fanatical and very vocal cynics, to a large segment of the general populace – there is a huge number of people who question “cracking backs” as being of little therapeutic value, and of much unnecessary risk. When you use a low-force adjusting approach – you enter a new game – and you find a whole new marketplace.

14) Enjoyment, fulfilment, passion and excitement seem to happen in DCs lives. It amazes me how many DCs are actually struggling in practice emotionally – and are in a state of disappointment, boredom or burnout. We get so many phone calls and emails a few months after a TRT program with amazing stories of renewed practices, revived enthusiasm, and unexpected but well-deserved rewards…

1) Theory that life originates due to a force distinct from chemical and other physical forces. The classical 18th century vitalist doctrines propose that all life phenomena are animated by immaterial life spirits. These life spirits are unexplainable and undescribable from a physical point of view, but determine the various life phenomena.

2) Where vitalism explicitly invokes a vital principle, that element is often referred to as the “vital spark,” “energy” or “élan vital,” which some equate with the “soul.” Vitalism has a long history in medical philosophies: most traditional healing practices posited that disease was the result of some imbalance in the vital energies which distinguish living from non-living matter.

3) Was once a term of Aristotle pertaining to a cosmic force known as “ether” that was supposedly giving life to dead things.

Chiropractic has a vitalistic philosophy in the sense that we claim we all have an innate intelligence which gives our human bodies their healing potential - the ability to intelligently regenerate. To take this one step further, it was proposed by our pioneers that this information is transmitted through the body via the “Mental Impulse”. This is a separate and distinct concept to that of action potentials and electrical currents…

D.D. Palmer: “Chiropractors do not treat diseases, they adjust the wrong which creates disease; they have discovered the simple fact that the human body is a sensitive piece of machinery, run throughout all its parts by mental impulse.” (1910)

Stephenson: “We might conceive of this mental impulse as being composed of certain kinds of physical energies, in proper proportions, which will balance other such forces in the Tissue Cell; as electricity, valency, magnetism, cohesion, etc., etc.. Perhaps some of these energies are not known to us in physics. What right have we to assume that we have found them all? The writer presents this as a hypothesis or theory in order to get a working basis… It is no discredit to Chiropractic that it must also use theories concerning the transmission of mental forces.” (1927)

So, here’s the challenge - how does this affect the way we adjust each and very patient? Is our application, or the “Art” of doing what we do, a reflection and outpouring of this vitalistic philosophy? Let’s contrast the above definitions of vitalism with those of mechanism…

Mechanism:

1) Machine part: A machine or part of a machine that performs a specific task.

2) Something like machine: Something that resembles a machine in having a structure of interrelated parts that function together the fragile mechanism of the planet’s ecology.

3) Method or means: A method or means of doing something.

4) Philosophy philosophical theory: The philosophical theory that all natural phenomena, including human behavior, can be explained by physical causes and processes.

To be perfectly honest - this sounds more like the practice of chiropractic as it is practised in most chiropractors’ rooms.

Now here’s the challenge: If we have a vitalistic philosophy, but this has no application in what we do - then what’s the point of having this philosophy? After all - isn’t the purpose of a philosophy to provide an internal compass, via which we make decisions about what we think and believe, and hence how we behave?

This leaves us with two options…

1) Jettison our traditional philosophy and replace it with one that sounds more like the mechanistic methods - so that our Art follows on from our philosophy - that is - change our philosophy to match our behaviour.

2) Upgrade our behaviours so that they align with our core vitalistic philosophy.

Torque Release Technique provides chiropractors with a much more vitalistic model of applying their philosophy on each and every patient. And here’s what most practitioners find when they make this upgrade - they see more vitalistic changes in their practice members: Over and above the garden variety mechanistic changes - That is - they see MORE LIFE returning into the faces, minds and bodies of their patients.

Through the mid-nineties pivotal chiropractic research was conducted and was published at the beginning of the 21st Century, and yet a large segment of the profession missed it! Why?

1) The findings weren’t published in a peer-reviewed chiropractic journal – they were actually published in two major psychiatric journals; the Journal of Molecular Psychiatry (published by Nature) and the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs: No chiropractor would have received these journals in their post-box.

2) The research involved a patient population commonly ignored by comfortable middle-class chiropractors, namely an addicted population. But this study population was chosen for very specific scientific reasons – they biogenetically possess an inability to achieve a state of wellbeing.

Why was this research potentially so paradigm shifting for the chiropractic profession?

1) The design of the study was overseen by a leading medical biostatistician from the University of Miami, School of Medicine: Nothing was included in the study unless it stood up to his rigorous statistical and evidence-based standards.

2) The study involved randomization, and all of the scientific design expected of longitudinal clinical research, and, three-arms – not just active treatment and control groups, but also a placebo-control group.

3) The acceptance and rejection of various chiropractic examination procedures which lead to a short-list of evidence-based indicators of Subluxation, ultimately synthesizing a technique for analyzing and differentially diagnosing a Primary Subluxation.

4) The need to design an adjusting instrument that provided true reproducibility of the adjustive thrust and the vectors of the classic chiropractic adjustment – the Toggle Recoil.

5) Acceptance of the research results by peer review panels far more rigorous and skeptical than normal chiropractic peer review.

6) A documentary featured on Discovery Health Channel highlighting the findings of the research and giving chiropractic a glowing review.

What was so impressive about the results? To understand this we need to tell you a little about the clients accepted into the trial: These were recovering addicts with many substance-abusing habits, who were undergoing normal 30-day withdrawal in an in-patient facility… Nasty stuff: Major withdrawals, cravings, severe physical and mental symptoms, abstinence-based challenges… all going on at the same time. What happened when they received specific chiropractic adjustments?

1) They finished the program: The gold-standard of recovery is how many clients make it to the end of the thirty days? Good rehab facilities achieve somewhere around 70% retention. When they were adjusted as well, the retention rate increased to 100%… That’s right no-one left! In recovery circles it is common knowledge that if someone drops out of care it isn’t because they’ve started a new job, or had a miraculous healing and didn’t need to hang around. No, they’ll usually be back in their old haunts doing the same old stuff. This finding is huge – if they stayed they must have been doing really well.

2) Their anxiety levels dropped dramatically: This research project didn’t just measure one outcome, it also utilized internationally accepted state of wellbeing questionnaires: When the clients were adjusted the Spielberger’s State of Anxiety Test scores dropped the same amount that it normally takes six months of standard care to achieve.

3) Their depression levels dropped markedly. When the clients were adjusted the Beck’s depression inventory scores dropped the same amount that it normally takes twelve months of standard care to achieve.

4) They didn’t need the usual nursing and first-aid measures demanded by this population. Nursing station visits are actually the biggest overheads in running a rehab facility: When the clients were adjusted only 9% needed to make any nursing station visits – the placebo and normal care groups made visits in 56% and 48% of cases respectively (that’s right the placebo group was more miserable than the normal care group – so much for the argument that chiropractic is a good placebo – this suggest it’s actually a “nocebo”!)

Now wait a minute I hear many of you saying – “I have no interest in treating drug addicts in my practice, so why would I want to learn a technique to treat them?”

Here is the point… the CHIROPRACTIC IN THIS STUDY DID NOT TREAT ADDICTION, IT ADJUSTED SUBLUXATIONS. The in-patient program treated the addiction with the normal abstinence strategies, group therapy, counseling etc. The chiropractic produced massive increases in state of wellbeing, helping the recovery to be more effective. You need to learn how to produce such massive increases in state of wellbeing to, in all of your practice members…

Isn’t this what great chiropractic is about? We don’t fix them, but when we adjust them their body’s healing and recuperative processes are exponentially released to fulfill their true potential – great chiropractic that is…

So why would you learn Torque Release Technique the chiropractic model that evolved through this scientific process?

1) Wouldn’t you love your client retention to reach record proportions? There’s only one thing that really increases retention – RESULTS. You might be a great salesperson and be able to coerce people into hanging around, but when they FEEL the benefits they don’t need any convincing.

2) No-one refers like an excited customer: Do you think that massive changes in emotional and mental status would excite your clients? When their back pain’s gone they quickly forget why they are coming to see you: But when the lights get turned on every adjustment, you’ll be impressed when they start to ask if it is alright for them to regularly come back for more, and and can they bring someone else with them?

3) If we are truly a wellness profession, then our clients’ dependence on symptomatic and crisis care should start to vanish. How thankful do you think your clients will be when they notice how they aren’t spending so much on panadol, panadeine and nurofen, and they no longer have to spend ages sitting in the MD’s waiting room with all those miserably infectious people? How much easier will your practice hours be when no-one is winging and whining about their latest ache?

4) Wouldn’t you like to get to the end of the day after having seen more clients than ever before, and not be emotionally and physically spent? With TRT you can speed up your decision making, reduce the number of adjustments per visit, and minimise all the extra stuff you do trying to hit the right spot.

5) So you can be sure you are using the most evidence-based technique ever available to the chiropractic profession. Make sure you have total proficiency in the procedures accepted by one of medicine’s top biostatisticians – discover if you’re wasting your time doing stuff that was rejected?

6) So you can access the Integrator Adjusting Instrument, the only instrument with pre-loading, recoil, torque, stunningly high speed (1/10,000 sec), low force, and neurologically-based impulse frequency.

7) To be trained in the technique that provides you with the vitalistic, tonal, non-linear, neurologically-based adjusting technique to go hand-in-hand with your vitalistic chiropractic philosophy – Leave behind the mechanistic methods that have held back chiropractic practice in the twentieth century.